Who killed Gail Webster?
1978 ‘cold case’ resurrected
Nearly 42 years have passed since Gail Webster was found bludgeoned to death Oct. 28, 1978, inside her home in the Somerset Park Apartments in Troy.
No signs of forced entry. No property missing. No sexual assault had occurred. But for some reason, someone wanted her dead.
It was Webster’s daughter, Terry, then 25, who came home to the apartment she shared with her momand younger sister, and made the gruesome discovery shortly before 6 a.m. Webster had been hit in the head with an unknown object and was lying lifeless on the floor.
In the immediate aftermath, Terry and her two sisters were forced to face a horrific turn in their lives: The loss of their beloved mother when she was just 48 years old, the tragedy mercilessly compounded by the fact that it came at the hands of someone else.
Someone, for some reason, wanted her dead.
But who, and why?
To this day, police have not been able to identify the person who killed Webster, a woman who’d been known as friendly, fun-loving and good-natured, and not having an enemy in the world.
The daughters, now all in their 60s, are still waiting for justice.
And they have a rekindled hope for it, now that a team from the Troy Police Department is focusing efforts with investigatory techniques thatweren’t available at the time, such as advanced DNA analysis, to solve this four decadeslong mystery — and give Webster’s daughters the peace they’ve been seeking.
“We just want justice for her. There’s an answer out there,” said Terry WebsterKing, 67, adding that the pain of her loss “never goes away.”
“The impact of her so brutally taken away from us — that’s an emotion that’s hard to process,” she said
Webster’s youngest daughter, Wendy Razlog, 63, said she thinks about her mother every day. And now that investigators are taking a deep dive into her slaying, she may finally get resolution for the unanswered questions, which she describes as being “like a cancer that doesn’t go away.”
“I just want to bring closure to this. It won’t stop the pain, but it will make it a lot better,” said Razlog, who was 21 when her mother was murdered.
Eldest daughter, Cindy
Kujawski, 68, remembers her mother as being very personable and nice, and who “never had an unkind word to say about anybody. She was always in a good mood.” The family, she said, it “just trying to get peace of mind at this point.”
‘Do right by this family’
Troy Police Sgt. Meghan Lehman, who’s working with two of her colleagues to crack the case, said the city has 15-20 unsolved homicides dating back to the 1960s or so. So why is the Webster case now in the spotlight?
“This one is really sad, really unusual. It just stood out as an odd case,” she said, adding that there’s a vast amount of evidence connected to it.
“We would really like to do right by this family — that’s what gets (one) into this type of work. Hav
ing this go unsolved for so many years is terrible,” she said.
Here’s some of what police determined over the course of the earlier investigation:
• At the time ofher death, Webster was divorced and living with her two younger daughters. She was working as a manager at SusieQ’s, formerly located near Woodward Ave. near 13 Mile Road.
• Webster had no history of criminal involvement or illicit activity.
• The 1978 investigation focused on themen inWebster’s life: Her then- boyfriend, a former boyfriend and her ex- husband. All were cleared as suspects via polygraph or other means, and no motive was identified for any of them to kill her. Other familymembers, co-workers and neighbors were also interviewed at the time. All were cleared via polygraph or othermeans.
• A suspicious incident occurred Oct. 2, 1978, when Webster’s daughter, Terry, went to Piper’s Alley, a hotspot previously located at 3250W. Big Beaver. Their apartment keys were stolen from her car while she was in the bar. Later that evening, while Terry was still out, an unidentified person was heard by Webster jostling her apartment door handle. That person fled when Webster yelled out.
• Terry spotted a suspicious vehicle, occupied by two white males, 20 to 25 years old, in the parking lot of Piper’s Alley the night the keys were stolen. The vehicle was described as a 1968 to 1970 Pontiac Tempest or Chevy, beat up and rusted, blue/green in color. Terry saw on the morning of themurder sawwhat she thought was the same vehicle on Dorchester Drive — where their apartment was — near Coolidge Highway. The driver of that vehicle had blond hair.
• On Nov. 2, 1978, Troy police got a tip about a vehicle seen in the area of the murder. The vehicle was described as a 1968 to 1970 dark blue Pontiac or Chevy, dirty with some body damage. The driver was described as a white male, 25 years old, 6’ tall, 160 pounds, black curly hair, last seen wearing an “Army jacket.” The vehicle was reportedly seen about 40 minutes before Webster was discovered dead.
In 1995, Webster’s body was exhumed because of advances in DNA analysis, and another autopsy was conducted. But no breaks resulted.
With the new push, though, Lehman said additional lab analysis is potentially among the new investigative avenues for closing the case. But reaching out to the public is also vitally important, she said. The hopes are that the new efforts bring forthpeople that know something and are willing to sharewith police.
“Sometimes, the guilty are just done holding secrets. Ormaybe there could be a deathbed confession,” Lehman said. “This is the time to do it.”
Webster’s daughters, while they managed to move on with their lives, said they were robbed of so much when their mother’s life was taken. Theymissed out on having her around when they needed advice or a shoulder to cry on when life got rough. They missed out on having her be a grandmother to their kids and sharing all of life’s ups and downs.
And while it’s been more than 40 years since the tragedy, the sisters aren’t giving up on the possibility of justice for their mom.
“If anybody knows anything, please contact Troy police,” Razlog said. “Step up to the plate.”
The Troy Police Department welcomes information through its tip line at 248524- 0777.